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THESE LITTLE ONES 
WHICH BELIEVE. 



A PLEA FOR EARLY BAPTISM, 



BY 

J. A. HALL, D. D., 

Author of Glimpses of Great Fields, etc. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR, 
BY THE 

LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



■\\5 



Two Ooe^es Rere!V(gd 
OCT 11 1904 

6'^/, /O^ fC/C ^ 
CLASS ex. xXq. I^o. 



Copyright, 1904, 

By J. A. Hall. 



::=. 



A FOREWORD. 

The single purpose of this little book is that of 
emphasizing the importance and validity of early 
baptism. While it cannot be denied that in the 
early church the practice of baptizing infants was 
universal, not so much can be said of the church 
of the present. For this, grave misconceptions, 
both as to the meaning of the sacrament and of 
what it requires on the part of the recipient, are to 
blame. Few will deny that a quickening of the 
conscience of Christian parents touching their ob- 
hgations in this respect to their Uttle ones is the 
religious need of the present. But while earnest 
souls are both laboring and praying for such a 
quickening, it is certain that it cannot be expected 
until these misconceptions are removed. To this 
end this little book aspires to contribute. Its 
purpose is concrete, rather than dogmatic ; it ap- 
peals to the Christian parent rather than to the 
theologian. 

But while such is the single purpose, its author 

(iii) 



V 



IV A FOEEWORD. 

entertains no hope of escaping criticism in respect 
of some of his positions. Indeed, it may be ques- 
tioned whether a book to which no exceptions can 
be taken would be worth the writing, for in such 
a book no new truth, or even an original concep- 
tion of an old, could possibly find expression. 
Particularly is this true of all books that trench 
on the realm of the dogmatic. 

To earnest men doctrines are sacred. They are 
so for the very good reason that doctrine and life 
are organically related, that sooner or later the 
former is sure to pass over into the latter. A 
difference in doctrine makes a difference in life. 
But, when it is all said, is it not too often the case 
that it is my conception of some particular doc- 
trine that concerns me the most— and my concep- 
tion of some particular truth that is the truest ? 
It is strange that this fact does not make us more 
charitable in our judgment of others to whom 
truth is as dear as it is to us — but it does not. So 
jealous are we of our conceptions, so thoroughly 
convinced are we that our vision sweeps the utter- 
most limit, that we suspect every voice struggling 
to give its own expression to this same truth, but 
which perchance does not speak with our own ac- 



A FOREWORD. V 

cent. Some day we shall see eye to eye ; some 
day we shall all speak the pure language of the 
Canaan — but that will not be until we shall have 
ceased to know but in part. 

That the views presented in this httle book are 
thoroughly Scriptural the writer has no doubt. 
That they are also in accord with the great con- 
fession of the church that he loves is also his 
sober conviction. 

J. A. H. 

Canton, Ohio. 



" Zbcsc Xlttlc ©nes Mbicb mcUeve," 



CONTENTS. 



'#- 



Chapter Page 

I. Faith 9 

II. Misconceptions 17 

III. The Object of Faith 27 

ly. Love and Faith 35 

V. Evangelical Faith 47 

yi. Are Childeen Capable of Faith? .... 55 

yil. The Universal Necessity of Eegeneration 69 

yill. Eegeneration and Baptism 79 

IX. Infant Baptism 93 

X. The Benefits of Infant Baptism 107 



The Eeformation failed to purge out the rationahstic 
leaven contained in the definition of faith. The ration- 
alistic reaction toward the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury brought the old intellectualistic conception of faith 
into renewed currency. Unfortunately, it still survives. 
— Lewis French Stearnes. 



THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE, 



CHAPTER I. 

FAITH. 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
of things not seen. — Hebrews xi. 1. 

What is faith? Few questions have been so 
frequently asked or so often answered. And the 
reason is that in the fields of rehgious inquiry no 
question is of greater importance. Sometimes 
faith has been defined as a faculty. Sometimes 
as a sixth sense, by means of which spiritual reali- 
ties are known. Sometimes it has been regarded 
as the verbal equivalent of belief. Indeed, the 
definitions that have from time to time been given 
of faith are both multitudinous and widely dif- 
ferent. 

Nor ought this to surprise us. Some things be- 
cause of their very nature are indefinable. Such 
1* (9) 



10 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

a thing is love. Definitions of love may serve to 
enlarge our conceptions of its real nature, but it is 
not within the power of speech to tell all that love 
is. Love is always something greater than any 
definition can make it. John tells us that ' ' Love 
is of God" and that God Himself is love. And 
these facts place it beyond the limits of any pos- 
sible definition. It is so with faith. It persist- 
ently refuses to be circumscribed by the limits of 
definitions, and is always something greater, 
higher, wider, deeper than words can make it. 
The greatest thinker, however gifted in conception 
or facile in speech, in the attempt to tell what 
faith is must at last lay aside his pen and ac- 
knowledge that it is vastly more than he has or 
can describe it as being. No doubt the best defi- 
nition of faith that has ever been given is the one 
given by Paul — ^^Now faith is the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ' ' 
But who can tell us the full meaning even of these 
words ? 

For these reasons the term faith has been used 
in almost every conceivable sense. The supersti- 
tion of the African or Hindoo, the belief of the 
savage in charms and incantations, have sometimes 



FAITH. 11 

been spoken of as faith. The confidence which 
enables the astronomer to await with calm cer- 
tainty the verifications of his mathematical com- 
putations has also been spoken of as faith. Co- 
lumbus directing his caravels westward over an 
unknown sea, assured that the evidences of the 
existence of a western land were entirely trust- 
worthy, has frequently been cited as an illustrious 
example of faith. The certainty of a fixed order 
in nature which moves the husbandman to sow his 
fields, confident of a harvest ; Abraham, denying 
the instincts of fatherhood, binding his son upon 
the altar, in the firm belief that God would raise 
him up ; the little child going out into the night, 
with its hand in that of its father and on that ac- 
count fearing no evil, each and all are but a few 
instances which might be given of the wide and 
diversified uses to which the term faith has been 
and is at present applied. No doubt, in each of 
these instances, faith in some form is present ; 
perhaps in every act of belief faith in the lesser 
ranges of its activity is operative. But belief, 
however firm, so long as it involves merely the in- 
tellect, is not Scriptural faith. The belief of the 
husbandman in the fixed order of nature never 



12 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

rises to the dignity of faith, for at best it but 
prompts to toilj looking for seed-time and harvest. 
The confidence with which the astronomer looks 
into the heavens, doubting not that his carefully 
computed tables will be verified in the onward 
march of the heavenly bodies, is not the thing of 
which the writer of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews 
so eloquently speaks. Even the intellectual con- 
viction that rests upon abstract truth as its basis 
is not one in nature with evangelical faith. The 
invariable characteristic of such faith, a charac- 
teristic by which it is distinguished from all else 
that may bear the name, is that it alone rests on a 
personal being, whom it beholds back of all and 
in His righteousness and truth finds the ground of 
its certitude. 

And this is to say that in the Scriptures the 
term faith is used in a specific sense and carries 
with it a meaning that it does not possess in secu- 
lar literature or in common speech. Nor is this 
exceptional. Terms descriptive of spiritual reali- 
ties seldom if ever have or can have a fixed mean- 
ing. Their meaning varies with the subject treated 
and the conceptions of the author who uses them, 
and the meaning that any such term may have in 



FAITH. 13 

any instance is to be determined in the light of 
the subject treated and the thought which it is de- 
signed to express. Even the famihar term, hght, 
has not always the same meaning. As used in 
common speech and by the untrained, it stands 
for the absense of darkness. But as used by the 
scientist, in its strictly scientific sense, it may have 
no relation to darkness at all, for when the scien- 
tist speaks of light he thinks not of darkness, but 
of the pulsations of ether, for his superior knowl- 
edge has taught him that the absence of darkness 
is but an accident that may or may not attend 
the presence of light. In determining, therefore, 
the meaning of the terms, we need to be in touch 
with both the thought of the writer and the sub- 
ject of which he is speaking. 

And this is pre-eminently true in respect of the 
term faith. As used by inspired writers and in 
the discussion of themes purely spiritual, it car- 
ries with it a meaning other than any that it may 
possess in uninspired poetry or secular Hterature. 
It could not be otherwise. Either new words 
must be coined or old terms used in other than 
their ordinary sense when themes spiritual and 
eternal become the subject of discussion. But 



14 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

the theme of the New Testament is specitic and 
altogether miique. Its writers are not, in the or- 
dinary sense, either scientists, historians, or phil- 
osophers. Xor are the themes which they set 
forth the same as those that make up the subject 
matter of secular thought and literature. The 
single theme of the Scriptures is : God's plan for 
saving man. Its history traces the special line of 
God's action, continued through time, looking to 
that end. From first to last the Bible is a record 
of God's gracious action among men, continued 
in the course of history through the ages until it 
culminates in the great revelation of God in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself through 
His death upon the cross. And this truth must 
not be lost sight of for a moment. The habit of 
thinking of the Scriptures as merely a revelation 
of truths, or doctrines, or precepts recorded in a 
book, has done immense harm. It has always, 
when persisted in, tended to arrest the thought so 
that it stops short, and is in danger of resting on 
the book with its propositions and doctrines in- 
stead of passing through these to the hving God. 
The Bible is not an ai^senal of proof texts, or a 
repository of doctrines, or even a collection of 



FAITH. 15 

precepts and rules for the government of the Ufe. It 
is not, except in a secondary sense, even a revelation 
of truth. From Genesis to the Apocalypse of John 
it is a revelation of a personal God as an All- wise. 
All-loving, and All-righteous Being, and contains 
a disclosure of the relations into which, through 
Christ, He desires to bring all men with Himself. 
It is, therefore, in the light of the subject 
treated and a knowledge of the thought which the 
inspired writers are aiming to convey, that we are 
to determine the meaning of the term faith as 
used in the Scriptures. What faith in its ordi- 
nary sense may be or what it may help man to 
achieve in things secular and temporal are of no 
concern to the inspired writers. Dealing with 
things spiritual and eternal a new and enlarged 
meaning is given to the term, and the question for 
us to determine is. What conception had they of 
faith and what would they have us regard it as 
being ? 



There is a belief that it is mere intellectual assent foun- 
ded on evidence that satisfies the mind, or, if direct evi- 
dence is wanting, on the testimony of someone who knows. 
When the act of believing is represented as a Christian 
duty and privilege, these inferior forms of belief are too 
easily accepted as suflacient. But faith is not mere intellect- 
ual assent — it is not mere belief on testimony. It is not 
even the intellectual acceptance as true of what God has 
said. Faith is not faith without the element of personal 
confidence, self-commitment — trust. — Clarke, An Outline 
of Christian Theology, page 357. 



CHAPTER II. 

MISCONCEPTIONS. 

Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The 
devils also believe and tremble, — James xi. 19. 

We have just been saying that the term faith 
when used in its evangelical sense possesses a 
specific meaning. In its nature Christian faith is 
mi genesis. Whether regarded in the light of its 
origin, of the object upon whom it lays hold, or 
considered from the standpoint of the work that it 
accomplishes, it stands alone and unique. And 
this is so, because it is Christian faith. It is 
characteristic of the religion of Christ that it exalts 
everything with which it is brought into relation. 
In the realm of experience it perpetually repeats 
the miracle of Cana — changing the ordinary into 
the extraordinary, turning the common water 
of earth into wine. And what it does in the 
realm of experience it does in respect of our 
powers ; all find in this religion their normal field 
of activity and for this reason also their highest 
development. 

(17) 



18 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

It is SO with the power of faith. Christ tells us 
that it is the gift of God. And being His gift, it 
has not only its specific purpose, but finds in this 
purpose its perfect Ufe. If the life of the body 
were all, if life were no more than meat or the 
body than raiment, the gift of faith would not be 
needed. The instinct that makes it possible for 
the bird to secure its food, that teaches it to build 
its nest and guides it in its unerring flight from 
^^zone to zone," would have served every purpose 
of man. It is because his destiny is beyond, 
because God is his home, because the things for 
which he has been created and with which he 
needs to be brought into vital touch are unseen 
and eternal, that he needs faith. For these pur- 
poses and for these alone has faith been given, and 
in the working out of these purposes do we see it 
in the Scriptures. Instead, therefore, of the usual 
inquiry, ' ' What is faith ? " we must substitute the 
more specific question, ' ' What is Christian faith ? ' ' 

Let us hasten to own that Christian faith is not 
mere intellectual assent to any truths as such. 
Possibly, in the case of the immature Christian, 
faith may rise but little above the assent of the 
intellect to truths put in verbal form. But even 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 19 

then, such assent is secondary and subordinate. 
Upon truths alone, faith cannot lay hold with the 
full power of its Ufe or derive from them the 
necessary stimulus for the accompUshment of its 
divine task. It accomplishes its higher and truer 
work when it unites the behever with Christ, and 
through such union makes him partaker of the 
divine Hfe. In the nature of the case simple 
assent to creeds or systems cannot be the appointed 
work of Christian faith. It is not truths that 
save, but the Truth. ^^ I,'' says Christ, ^^ am the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life." After all, the 
highest expression of truth is the Perfect Person. 
Jesus not only gave utterance to truths. He Him- 
self was ' ^ the Truth ' ' in its concrete and essential 
form. Systems may contain truth. Truth may 
find its expression in creeds, but it is the personal 
Truth who alone has power to save. The failure 
to recognize this has done and is yet doing untold 
harm. It has forced Christ into the background — 
has divided Christendom into a multitude of war- 
ring sects, zealous indeed for truths, but too often 
losing sight of the personal Truth, Christ Jesus, 
in whom all believers are to be made one, even as 
He and the Father are One. 



20 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

It cannot be stated too plainly, or with too great 
insistence, that it is not truths wrought in creeds 
or confessions that become the true object of 
saving faith, but the personal Truth, even Jesus. 
In the Apostles' Creed we have what is without 
doubt the most concise and generally accepted of 
all the confessions of the church. So really is it 
an epitome of the great truths of the word of God, 
as that, having studied the New Testament, it 
becomes impossible to formulate its teachings 
without using the terms of this oldest of the con- 
fessions. Yet it is possible to assent to each 
of its statements, and yet be devoid of faith. No 
doubt every article of this confession is true. 
Every such article confessedly rests solidly on the 
word of God. But truths alone, and as such, are 
not the basis of saving faith. 

It is at this point that we need clearly to distin- 
guish. Truths, even the truths of the Scriptures, 
are not the object of Christian faith. Even the 
Bible, if not rightly conceived, may become a 
vain object of belief. The moment it is regarded 
as a revelation of truths that are to be believed, to 
the saving of the soul, it becomes a false anchor- 
age. He who though sometimes unrecognized. 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 21 

but who yet lives and moves on every page of the 
inspired word, He who is the true content of the 
Scriptures, must be laid hold of, for until the soul 
finds Him it misses the very kernel of the Scrip- 
tures on the side of its saving revelations. Appro- 
priate here are the words of Prof. L. F. Stears, in 
his recent book, entitled ^^The Evidence of Chris- 
tian Experience. ' ' He says : ^ ^ A very common 
definition makes faith intellectual assent to the 
truth of certain doctrines. But while faith may 
involve such assent, this is secondary and sub- 
ordinate. The rationalistic tendency, so manifest 
in the theology of the last century, nowhere comes 
more plainly to light than in this definition, inher- 
ited as it is from the Roman Catholic Church. It 
reduces the most sacred and spiritual act of religious 
life to a matter of intellectual acceptance. Neither 
is faith a conviction of the reahty of what is 
unseen. The belief of the man of science in the 
existence of atoms and energy and ether, which 
he cannot see, may be a kind of faith, but it 
is not the kind which we have in our analysis of 
the Christian experience. It resembles Christian 
faith in so far as both are concerned with a region 
beyond the discovery of sense. But that is all. 



22 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

In their essence the two kinds of faith are radi- 
cally different, in correspondence'* with the differ- 
ence of the two spheres to which they belong. 
Christian faith is a much simpler matter. It is 
the act of trust in God by which we receive and 
trust Jesus Christ alone for salvation." 

And so, too, a knowledge of the historic Christ — 
a knowledge of all that He did and said — may be 
possessed and faith still be wanting. Without 
question, the scribes and Pharisees knew more of 
the outward, the historic, Christ than do we. Of 
most of the audiences to which Christ spoke, they 
formed a part. Persistently they followed Him 
from place to place as He made the tours of His 
earthly ministry. They crowded themselves with 
utter immodesty into the seclusion even of His 
private life. They were witnesses of most, if not 
all, of His miracles. They also knew the teach- 
ing of the prophets concerning His coming, and 
how completely in Him these prophesies were 
fulfilled. They were witnesses of His shameful 
trial, and around His cross they stood, beholding 
the darkness at mid-day. They were witnesses of 
the earthquake and the mighty happenings in 
testimony of the divinity of the One who there 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 23 

gave up His life. Nor were they ignorant of His 
resurrection, on the morning of the third day, for 
it was these very men who conceived and put into 
the mouths of the watchers beside the tomb the 
he concerning the steahng of His body by the 
disciples. None, not even the intimate associates 
of Jesus, knew better than did the Pharisees the 
minutest detail of Christ's claims and history, for 
no eyes are so keen as those of hate. And, know- 
ing these facts, they also believed them. For the 
mind has no choice between believing and dis- 
believing what is known to be true. But, knowing 
all these things, they were without Christian faith. 
The intellect, constrained by evidence that could 
not be disputed, was convinced, and, as a conse- 
quence, belief was engendered, but the heart, with- 
out which no one can believe ^^unto righteous- 
ness," refused to love, and the faith which is 
' ' wrought by love ' ' remained unborn. 

To contend, therefore, that a system of truth 
must first be mastered before faith can come into 
being is to betray ignorance, both of the nature of 
faith and also of the relation of faith to knowledge 
in the experience of men. 

It is against this error that Martensen protests in 



24 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

these earnest words, ^ ^ If we hold fast the truth 
that salvation is an individual thing and yet 
are not satisfied with simple faith in the Redeemer 
as the ground for our salvation, we shall be in 
danger of reposing in a certain set of propositions, 
trusting that if we hold them we may be indif- 
ferent to everything else." So also said the 
thoughtful Julius MuUer, ^ ' We must regard the 
conviction that the faith which saves does not 
consist in the adoption of a series of articles of 
faith, but in an absolute and trustful surrender of 
one's self to the personal Saviour, a surrender of 
which the simplest child is capable." 

So, likewise. Dr. Jacobs in his '^Elements of 
Religion : " ^ ' Faith has its intellectual side ; but 
it is not mere assent to any doctrine or to any 
number of doctrines. It is essentially a matter 
of the heart and will. It is the sinking of my 
will into God's will, the harmonizing of my heart 
with God's heart." 

We never will get right on the question of evan- 
gelical faith until we accept, without reserve or 
qualification, the truth that ^^with the heart," 
and not with the head, man believeth unto right- 
eousness. The question as to the existence of 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 25 

faith in any given case can never be determined 
by an inquiry into the degree of intellectual 
knowledge that may be possessed, nor is the 
presence of such faith in the heart conditioned on 
either age or experience. 
2 



The object of faith is Christ in the totahty of His per- 
son, not merely a particular work or suffering of Christ, 
still less the fruits thereof. Faith enters into a substan- 
tial, mystical union with the whole person. — Dorner. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. — 
Acts xvi. 31. 

Since faith is a living thing and since its seat 
is the heart, a study of its object logically pre- 
cedes a study of its nature. Experience proves 
that different objects are known by means of dif- 
ferent faculties. Thus ideas appeal specifically 
and primarily to the intellect. To the mind they 
become objects in a sense that they do not and 
cannot to the sense or to the heart. On the other 
hand, material qualities appeal more particularly 
to the sense. Weight, color hardness, indeed all 
the various phenomena of matter, are known 
through the sense and become objects to no other 
knowing power of man. The heart also has its 
specific objects. The heart helps us little in the 
solution of purely intellectual questions, and it is 
just as helpless in making known to us material 
qualities. Its distinctive realm is that of the 

(27) 



28 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

spiritual and the personal. Whatever belongs to 
the realm of the personal and spiritual becomes 
an object to the heart, for the reason that by the 
heart these realities can best be known. 

Accordingly, when once the object apprehended 
is known, it becomes easy for us to locate the 
particular faculty or power by which it is appre- 
hended. It is, therefore, for the sake of the light 
that the inquiry touching the object of faith 
throws on the nature of faith itself that we here 
consider it. What, then, is the object of Chris- 
tian faith ? We have tried to make it clear that 
it is not a set of propositions. That truths, even 
the truths of God's word, are not the object of 
saving faith. To have read the Scriptures, how- 
ever carelessly, is to have learned that Christ, and 
Christ alone, is the object, the true content, of 
Christian faith. It is not truths, therefore, but a 
person that is laid hold of in every saving out- 
reach of the soul. 

It is true that we sometimes speak of faith in 
God's word. We endeavor for certain reasons to 
stimulate in ourselves and in others faith in the 
promises. But neither the word nor the promises 
can be the true or ultimate object of evangelical 



THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 29 

faith. We speak of faith in the promises because 
in practical experience it is impossible at all times 
to use language in strict accordance with the facts, 
for, in a subordinate sense, faith does rest upon 
the promises. It is unfortunate that the English 
word ' ' faith ' ' has no cognate verb, but is de- 
pendent for such companionship upon the dis- 
similar verb ' ^ believe. " If it were possible to 
coin an appropriate word — a word that would 
express the true action of faith — we would be 
vastly richer for the purpose of expression. We 
would then not be compelled to speak of faith in 
the promises at the moment when we desire to 
express simply our belief in them. Nevertheless, 
with speech as it is, we recognize that it is only 
in a secondary and subordinate sense that one 
can have faith in the promises. A moment's 
reflection will bring anyone to see that even here 
faith must ultimately rest upon Christ. It is 
faith in Him, confidence in His integrity, that 
inspires confidence in His promises. It is because 
He is ' ' faithful who has promised ' ' that we re- 
gard the promises as trustworthy. We do not 
believe certain promises because we have no con- 
fidence in the person who made them. We do 



30 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

place implicit reliance in the promises of others 
because we have confidence in the persons by 
whom such promises have been made. Confi- 
dence in the man gives confidence in the promise. 
And so in respect of the promises of Christ. 
His integrity, His trustworthiness. His absolute 
righteousness, make it impossible that He should 
deceive. It is, therefore, upon Him that we at 
least rest, even when we think that we are resting 
upon His promises. First and last, the object of 
faith is Christ. It is in this fact that the essential 
distinction between the religion of Jesus and every 
other consists. It alone rests upon the personal 
relationship of the disciple with the Master. 
Wherever this idea has been departed from, 
Christianity has lost its power. And so on the 
contrary, in the precise measure that this truth 
has been kept in the foreground, has the Christian 
religion become a transfiguring and all-conquering 
power. Out of devotion to Jesus have arisen all 
those enduring forms of heroism that have glori- 
fied the history of the church. ' ' For His sake ' ' 
His disciples have deemed it a privilege to live in 
solitude and in dungeons, and rejoiced to lay down 
their lives at the stake. No trial has been too 



THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 31 

great for the sake of " the name." And it is this 
devotion to Jesus that has ever irradiated the pri- 
vate experience of the Christian with the bright- 
ness of Sonship. ^^To me," says Paul, summar- 
izing his rehgion, ' ' to hve is Christ, and to die is 
gain," for that too is to depart and to be with 
Him. 

Nor is that all. Recognizing that no man hath 
life in himself, that we live alone as we live in 
Him, dependent, even as the branch is dependent 
upon the vine, the believer chngs to Christ as his 
only hope. First and last, the personal relation- 
ship of the behever to Jesus is the essence of the 
religion He inaugurated. ^^Come unto me, all 
ye that weary and are heavy laden," are His 
words to the sin-burdened. ' ' I am the vine, ye 
are the branches. " ^ ^ He that believeth in me ' ' 
is the familiar phrase in which He expresses the 
condition of the new life which He is ever willing 
to communicate. The personal, ever-hving Christ 
is pre-eminently the object, yea, the only object, 
of Christian faith. 

But this Christ, revealed that we might both 
know and believe on Him, is the historic Christ. 
Not a creation of the imagination or one who may 



32 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

be known apart from His word and the operation 
of the Holy Spirit, but the Christ of Bethlehem, 
of Calvary, and of the tomb. ' ' The one who 
for us men and our salvation came down from 
heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of 
the Virgin Mary and was made man, and was 
crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, who 
suffered and was buried, and the third day arose 
again for our justification." No other Christ is 
known in the Scriptures, for besides Him there is 
no other. He alone has power to save ; and this 
Christ, in all that for which He stands, is the 
object of saving faith. 

But in determining the object of faith we have 
also determined the estimate that is to be put upon 
creeds and confessions. Their value is to be esti- 
mated by the help that they afford to a better 
understanding of Christ and His saving work. 
Apart from this they have no value. The Christ 
confessed in the creed, and not the creed, is the 
essential thing. What the alpenstock is to the 
traveler in the mountains, affording in slippery 
places a means of safety as he climbs upward 
toward the summit, this creed and doctrine are 
to the believer. They afford safety to the believer 



THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 33 

amid the perils to which everyone, however he 
may flatter himself to the contrary, is constantly 
exposed in his religious thinking. They put in 
simple form the saving truths upon which no one 
dare even for a moment loose his hold. In this 
light have creeds been regarded by the church. 
But back of all, eclipsing all, giving meaning to 
all, is the personal Christ in whom alone faith is 
to rest. 
2^ 



Faith is a moment in the idea of love. — Julius Muller. 

Trust, or faith, is a manifestation of love. Faith, or 
trust, is the primary manifestation of love to the heavenly- 
Father as it is of a child's love to its earthly father. — 
Prof. Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, page 326. 

That which saves the soul is faith, not belief. God de- 
mands the heart of man, because the heart once gained 
and changed all the rest follows, while the gift of all the 
rest without the heart is only seeming and leaves the man 
in his first estate. — Auguste Sabatier, Religions of Au- 
thority , page 335. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LOVE AND FAITH. 

Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is of God and 
knoweth God.—l John iv. 7. 

Between love and Christian faith there is a most 
intimate connection ; indeed, neither can exist 
without the other. In the seventh chapter of Luke, 
Christ identifies the two. It was Mary's love to 
Him that poured itself out in the ointment with 
which she anointed His feet, and it was her 
trust in Him that secured the forgiveness of her 
sins. Speaking to Simon, Christ says of Mary, 
^ ^ Her sins which are many are forgiven, for she 
loved much. ' ' A moment later, addressing Mary, 
He said, ' ^ Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace. ' ' 
To us, seeing as we do through a glass darkly, love 
and faith seem to be distinct reahties, but to Him, 
who was able to look into the heart and trace 
things to their source, they were regarded as one. 
And yet, if the object of saving faith is, as we 
have just learned, a person and not a truth, a spir- 

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36 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

itual being and not a system of thought, it could 
not be otherwise. 

It hardly needs to be proven that a person, and 
by that term we mean all for which it rightly 
stands, cannot become an object to either the reason 
or the sense. It is to the affections, to that realm 
of our nature spoken of in the Scriptures as ^ ' the 
heart," to which a person, in smy true sense, can 
become an object. We have just been saying 
that different objects are known by us in different 
ways. The faculty that brings us into relation 
with one is powerless to bring us into relation with 
another and a different set .of objects. Before the 
universe man stands a complex being, striving to 
know the things that are about him. Roughly 
these realities may be classified as material, men- 
tal, and spiritual. But the facts belonging to each 
of these separate classes are known by different 
perceptive powers. We know material things 
through the sense. They cannot be known by the 
mind as they are. We lay hold of ideas, the great 
thoughts with which the universe is inwrought, 
by the mind. Without the faculty of thought, 
ideas expressed in nature or on a printed page 
could not be known. And so the heart also has 



LOVE AND FAITH. 37 

its specific objects that it makes known. Realities, 
unperceived by the intellect and unknown by the 
sense, are revealed to the heart. Distinctively it 
is the organ of spiritual knowledge. By it we 
know personalities. Being itself the essence of 
personality, it is to the heart alone that a person 
can be revealed. As reason in the world speaks 
to reason in man, as sensuous objects speak to the 
sense, so the spiritual, which is the true essence of 
personality, speaks to the heart, and no one really 
knows another until he loves him. And this is 
the place to say that, as an organ of spiritual knowl- 
edge, we have made too little of the heart. In- 
deed, it is doubtful if we rightly know anything 
except through love. In all our education and 
intercourse we find again and again that love sees 
furthest, hears quickest, feels deepest. Nature says, 
^ ' If any man love me, I will manifest myself unto 
him. ' ' But she is speechless to the heart in which 
there is no response. Two men walk along the 
same road ; the one sees nothing of beauty, hears 
nothing of music. The other hears voices which 
linger in his ear. The wayside flower speaks to him 
its tender message, and the whole scene is as the dis- 
tinct handwriting of the Creator. Wherein is the 



38 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

difference ? It is this : the one loves nature, and 
nature takes him into her confidence and speaks 
to him her deepest spiritual secrets. The other 
cares not for nature, and natures cares nothing for 
him. 

It is so of art ; and it is so because art, like 
nature, is inwrought with the spiritual. Every 
great painting, every immortal statue, says to the 
looker-on, ' ' If any man love me, I will manifest 
myself to him. ' ' Even in nature we are depend- 
ent for our best knowledge on the heart, and no 
man has ever seen the spiritual in art except as he 
has seen it through the affections. 

But pre-eminently is all this true in respect of 
our knowledge of persons. We never rightly 
know our fellows until we love them ; for, as flowers 
expand to the sunshine, so the soul discloses itself 
under the genial radiance of a trustful affection. 
For anything like a true knowledge of our fellows, 
we are shut up almost entirely to love. 

Well, now, it is because God, as revealed in 
Christ, is a person, that He becomes pre-eminently 
an object to the heart. ^'Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God. ' ' Except as so re- 
vealed, ' ' clouds and thick darkness are ever round 



LOVE AND FAITH. 39 

about Him." James Martineau does not go too 
far when he says, ^ ' There is no outside evidence 
of matter, either human or divine. It is all recip- 
rocation and response between the inner soul and 
the other object, and the quickness of that response, 
the penetration of the glance, the certainty of the 
mutual understanding will depend not on the 
coldness of the heart, but on the fixed intensity 
of the mind that sends forth its looks. There is no 
denying that only through love and trust can God 
be known ; that by the base sense and understand- 
ing knowledge of Him cannot be won." 

All this is especially true of a person. And 
God, being a person, must also first be loved in 
order that He may be truly known, since to the 
heart alone can He become a true object. No cold 
intellect has ever really known the One of whom 
alone it is said that ' ' He is love. ' ' Long ago Job 
recognized this impossibility and asked the ques- 
tion, ^^ Canst thou by searching find out God?" 
And it is to Job's question that John gives the an- 
swer, ' ^ He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God 
and knoweth God." 

But out of this love to Christ and inseparable 
from it in essence is trust. In the words of Prof. 



40 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

Harris, ' ' Trust or faith is a manifestation of love. 
It is a common error that faith is entirely distinct 
from lovCj and that love is manifested only in acts 
of service. But it is love that trusts as really as 
it is love that serves. A child's instinctive love 
to its father and mother in its earlier years is man- 
ifested chiefly in acts of reception and trust. But 
the child's instinctive love in receiving and trusting 
is as real love as the parent's instinctive love in 
imparting and serving. Faith or trust is the pri- 
mary manifestation of love to the heavenly Father, 
as it is of a child's love to its earthly father." 
And this seems to be the thought of Paul when in 
his letter to the Galatians he speaks of faith as 
being ' ' wrought by love. ' ' His meaning is that 
faith is action in which love manifests itself ; that 
it springs out of love ; that it is love trusting itself 
in complete self-commitment to Christ. But in 
saying this we do not deny that in a subordinate 
sense trust in another may exist without love. 
Still such trust never rises to the dignity of evan- 
gelical faith. It never prompts to that absolute 
commitment of self which distinguishes Christian 
from every lower form of trust. It is possible to 
trust even in things. The traveler contemplating 



LOVE AND FAITH. 41 

an ocean voyage, having satisfied himself of the 
sea- worthiness of the ship in which he proposes 
to embark, may take passage trusting that she will 
carry him safely through the perils of the ocean. 
And such trust is, in a Subordinate sense, faith. 
But it is not, even in its higher exhibitions, 
the same trust that the one who has learned to 
love another places in that other. The trust that 
a child reposes in its parents is vastly different 
from the confidence that one may have in the 
trustworthiness of an ocean steamer. And so too, 
in a minor sense, we may trust men without the 
exercise of love. In moments of national peril a 
people may repose confidence in the ability of some 
great statesman to find a way out of the danger. 
In the moment before the battle the soldier may 
trust the ability of the commander to lead the army 
on to victory. The patient, suffering from disease, 
may trust the physician, fully believing that the 
disease from which he is suffering will yield to his 
skillful treatment. But all such instances of trust 
fall short of that trust of the whole self to another 
to which love prompts. The subhmest act of the 
soul is the complete surrender of self in all that 
for which the word stands, and this is possible 



42 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

only in the case of persons. Love alone can cause 
us thus to lose ourselves only to find ourselves again 
in the being of another. And such trust of the 
soul in Christ '^wrought," as Paul says, ^^by 
love ' ' in Christian Faith. 

It is this that makes faith the sublimest as well 
as the simplest act of the soul. Of what sublimer 
act is man capable than that of Abraham's on Mt. 
Moriah, when, denying every hope that he had 
cherished in respect of his son Isaac and con- 
quering the paternal instincts of his soul, he 
makes ready for the sacrifice of his only offspring ? 
Yet what is simpler than the unconscious trust of 
the little child yielding itself to the safe-keeping 
of the parent in some moment of threatened dan- 
ger ? Nothing but that trust which is born of su- 
preme affection for another could make either the 
lofty act of Abraham or that of the little child pos- 
sible. 

A beautiful illustration of this confiding faith 
but recently brought to notice is entitled to a place 
here. A prosperous worldly man, whose Christian 
wife had died praying for his conversion, was 
lying awake in the darkness of his room when he 
heard a voice from the little bed by his side saying, 



LOVE AND FAITH. 43 

' ' Papa, it is so dark ; take my hand. ' ' He took 
the Uttle hand extended and held it gently until 
the frightened child fell asleep. Then that strong 
man looked up through the darkness and also said, 
' ^ Father, it is so dark ; take my hand, as I have 
taken the hand of my dear child. ' ' Then it was 
that peace entered his soul, even as it had entered 
that of his child's when, with its hand in his, it 
fell asleep. Such is faith, the loving, trustful, 
confidence of the soul in Christ, the yielding of 
self gladly, lovingly to Jesus, committing the 
keeping of our interest both for time and eternity 
unto Him of whom it is said, ^ ' That he is mighty 
to save and strong to deliver. ' ' And it is this, too, 
that makes faith ' ' the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen." For to the 
soul even in this life there are no joys like the joys 
of loving fellowship. In comparison with this, all 
joys that come to us in the present time pale, for, 
in the midst of all earth' s delights, there is ever 
heard in the depths of the heart an undertone of 
sadness. But it is not so with the joy of loving fel- 
lowship. So far as any joy can be, this, and this 
alone, is satisfying. The truth is that no soul is 
or can be self-contained. It must have the help 



44 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

of another, must find its rest in another, must 
trust and be trusted before the measure of its long- 
ing can be satisfied. And this is the essence of 
rehgion on its subjective side. It is this fellowship 
with the divine that changes the aspiration of 
morality into the fruition of religion. For 
whether we regard religion from the human side 
or the divine, in either aspect it is of its very es- 
sence that the infinite has ceased to be a far-away 
vision and has become a present reality. The 
very first pulsations of the spiritual life involve 
the conviction of the soul's oneness with the in- 
finite for which it longs. ' ' Oneness of mind and 
will with the divine mind and will, ' ' says Caird 
in his ' ' Introduction to the Philosophy of Relig- 
ion," is not the future hope and aim of religion, 
but its very beginning and birth in the soul. To 
enter on the religious life is to terminate the strug- 
gle in that act which constitutes the religious life 
— call it faith, or trust, or self-surrender, or by what- 
ever name you will — there is involved the identi- 
fication of the finite with a life which is eternally 
realized. " ^ ' It is true, indeed, that the religious 
life is progressive, but it is not progress toward 
but within the sphere of the infinite. It is not 



LOVE AND FAITH. 45 

the vain attempt by endless finite additions or in- 
crements to becomepossessed of infinite wealth, but 
it is by constant endeavor, by constant exercise of 
spiritual activity, to appropriate that infinite inher- 
itance of which we are already in possession. 
Though the believer is not exempt from temptation 
and conflict, yet in that inner sphere in which his 
true life lies the struggle is over, the victory al- 
ready achieved. It is not a finite but an infinite 
life which the spirit lives. Every pulse-beat of 
its existence is the expression and realization of 
the hfe of God." And this blessed fellowship be- 
tween the believer and God, reahzed through faith, 
makes faith ' ^ the substance of things hoped f or ; " 
and, because the substance, also the sure '^evidence 
of things not seen. ' ' 



Christ Himself speaks of personal union with Himself 
as the means by which His blessing is received. In John 
XV. 1-6 we have one of His richest and most characteristic 
utterances. Here He tells of union with Himself as in- 
dispensable to the true life, and illustrates it by the union, 
real and vital, of branches with the vine upon which they 
grow. This is a union of life, and what it illustrates is a 
vital personal unity with Himself and men. This vital 
union with Christ is entered by faith. — Clarke, An Out- 
line of Christian Theology y page 356. 



CHAPTER V. 

EVANGELICAL FAITH. 

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word 
of God. — KoMANS X. 17. 

Until now we were not prepared to intelligently 
consider the subject of the present chapter. We 
needed first to see that the object of Christian faith 
is a person and also the relation of faith to love. 
For if the object of saving faith is Christ, and if 
Christ is known and laid hold of, as the Scriptures 
teach, by love, then is faith of necessity a thing 
of the heart. Were the end of faith other than 
that of self-commitment to a personal Saviour, 
this would not be the case. But Christ requires all. 
He demands the heart, and, when this is truly 
given, nothing remains that is not in the best 
sense His. In order to save He must have all, 
and faith gives all. Christ may be admired. He 
may even be worshiped as the chief among the 
sons of men without the commitment of self to 
Him. This is the act of faith, and becomes pos- 

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48 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

sible because of the essential oneness of faith and 
love. 

In his summary of the greatest things, Paul gives 
love the pre-eminence. ' ' Now abideth faith, hope, 
and love ; but the greatest of these is love. ' ' Using 
as he does the singular verb, he indicates the essen- 
tial oneness of the three, but he says love is the 
greatest. Greater than hope, because hope is its 
necessary consequent ; greater than faith, for the 
reason that faith is its manifestation. But in what 
love works it is also the greatest. The redemption 
of a world is a greater act than its creation, and of 
all that belongs to redemption, whether on the di- 
vine or human side, love is the inspiration and the 
cause. 

It is needless to dwell on the fact that trust is the 
first-born of love. 

In the holy moment when love goes out to an- 
other, trust in that other is conceived. It is so in 
respect of our love to Christ. To love Him is to trust 
Him, and the measure of our love will always be 
the measure of our trust. Evangelical faith may, 
therefore, be defined as an act of trust in Christ 
whereby we are united with Him in loving fellow- 
ship. Nor is this definition in any sense new. It 



EVANGELICAL FAITH. 49 

only re-states the conception of faith that has been 
held by the majority of evangelical writers and 
that has found expression in most of the creeds of 
the Christian church. Justifying faith, according 
to Martensen, is ' ' Not only an assent of the under- 
standing, but trust — a confidence of the heart. 
This appropriation of the crucified Saviour brings 
with it actual fellowship of the life with the risen 
Saviour in His church, a fellowship in which the 
believer possesses the righteousness of Christ, not 
only outwardly, but inwardly as a creative prin- 
ciple for a new development of Uf e. Christ dwells 
in the heart of the man by faith ; yea, faith is 
itself the living bond of secret power, the union 
between Christ and the individual soul." 

MuUer defines faith as ^ ^ The trustful surrender 
of one's self to the personal Saviour, a surrender 
of which the simplest child is capable." Accord- 
ing to the elder Hodge, ^ ^ The primary idea of 
faith is trust. ' ' The Westminster Confession de- 
fines faith as ^ ' A saving grace whereby we re- 
ceive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation as 
He is offered in the Gospels. ' ' According to the 
Heidelberg Catechism, ^^ Faith is cordial trust." 

It would be easy from authorities at hand to 
3 



50 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

multiply this testimony. Students of the best lit- 
erature on the subject are aware that the view ac- 
cording to which faith is regarded as simple trust 
of the heart in Christ is all but universally re- 
ceived, not by theologians alone, but by philoso- 
phers and the mass of Christian people. And 
this representation of faith accords with its 
representations as set forth in the New Testa- 
ment. It always carries with it the idea of trust. 
This is the recognized definition of TZKyreoo) by 
Grim, and his translator, Thayer, as well as by 
other lexicographers of the New Testament. In 
the Seventh Revised and Enlarged Edition of Lid- 
del and Scott's Lexicon, in Cremer's Biblico-Theo- 
logical Lexicon of Byzantine Greek, trust is given 
as the primary meaning. 

Well, now, in the light of this we are enabled to 
see why it is that Christian faith is always a dom- 
inating power both over the inner and the outer 
life. Being of the heart, it controls the will, bring- 
ing it into subjection to Christ, for the will is 
always in allignment with the controlling affection. 
Through the will it shapes the outward life of 
man, making it certain that wherever faith is, 
there will works also be. Being of the heart, it 



EVANGELICAL FAITH. 51 

unites us with Christ, and thus makes us partakers 
both of His righteousness and hfe. In the 15th 
chapter of John, Christ speaks of the vital relation 
into which through faith we are made to sustain 
to Him. He tells us that the relation is the same 
as that which sustains between the branch and the 
vine. ^ ' I am the vine, ye are the branches ; he 
that abideth in me and I in him, the same bring- 
eth forth much fruit ; without me ye can do noth- 
ing. ' ' The key to the meaning of this significant 
passage is in the word ^^ abide." It carries 
with it the idea of grafting. Deep into the 
main stem the knife of the vine-dresser is made 
to pierce until the heart is reached. By a hke pro- 
cess the heart of the branch is exposed, and the 
union of these, the heart of the living vine with 
that of the branch, is the condition of the new hfe. 
This it is, says Christ, to ^^ abide" in Him. It 
must be a union of the innermost -fibre, a union 
of the heart ; and the act through which such 
union is effected is faith ; in other words, the trust 
of love. 

But we must now consider the question as to 
how such trust is brought into being. It is easy 
to see that trust and love are coexistent, that they 



52 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

cannot be separated. But how is that attitude of 
soul to Christ, out of which both spring, brought 
about ? We are told in the Scriptures that faith 
is the gift of God. But it is not so immediately. 
Man is a moral being. In all that pertains to 
our salvation ' ' we are laborers together with God. ' ' 
If the soul could be saved without our consent and 
co-operation, it would not be worth saving. The 
worth of man resides in the fact that he is a per- 
sonal being endowed with the ability to live for 
himself, and, as a consequence, in a state of es- 
trangement from God. And for this freedom God 
as a moral being is bound to have respect. To 
teach as Augustine taught, that grace in the case 
of anyone is irresistible, is at once to belittle man 
and throw suspicion on the moral government of 
God. Accordingly the promise of His spiritual 
gifts to men are made to those alone who strive 
for them. ' ' Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and 
ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
you. ' ' It is so with the gift of faith. Like all of 
God's gifts, it is bestowed mediately. The harvest 
is also God's gift, but it comes through the use of 
means. No field of grain ever gladdened the heart 
of the reaper to the production of which his own 



EVANGELICAL FAITH. 53 

industry did not contribute through a wise use of 
the means. In this Hfetime, nothing that is worth 
having comes to us without our co-operation or 
apart from the use of the means suited to the end. 
And to this rule faith is no exception. It does not 
spring up in the soul spontaneously or by the fiat of 
the will. Its existence is conditioned upon the use 
of the meanSj and the means for its implanting are 
aflPorded in the inspired Word and the Sacraments. 
Faith, according to Paul, cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the word of God. Apart from the 
word, quickened by the Spirit, faith is impossible. 
The truth of the word lodged in the heart and 
quickened by the Spirit produces faith. Not the 
word alone but the word made effective by the 
Spirit, not the Spirit alone but the Spirit operating 
through the word, are creative of saving faith. 



Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.— Christ. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH ? ^ 
These little ones that believe in me. — Makk ix. 42. 

In the above question no reference is had to in- 
fants. The discussion of the relation of infants to 
faith and consequently to baptism has been re- 
served for a subsequent chapter. Theoretically, 
the line separating infancy from early childhood is 
hard to draw, but the distinction is real. Practi- 
cally all recognize a difference between the babe 
and the little child just beginning its individual 
and self-conscious life. 

Whether or not infants are capable of evangel- 
ical faith has been and from the nature of the case 
will continue to be a disputed question. This 
much we know, ' ' that faith cometh by hearing, 
and hearing by the word of God." It is true 
that the mere physical act of hearing is a pos- 
sibility of our earliest infancy, but it is not of 
physical hearing that the text speaks. It is of a 
spiritual appreciation, an understanding of the 

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66 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

meaning of what is heard ; and of such appreciation 
and understanding the infant is manifestly incap- 
able. But while this truth apparently denies the 
possibility of faith to infants, it does not deny its 
possibihty to those who have passed beyond the 
limits of infancy into those of early childhood. 
Experience proves that no truths are so readily 
understood, no facts so easily grasped, as those 
that make up the content of the Gospel. It is so 
because of the affinity between these truths and 
the simple, trustful spirit of childhood. It is true 
that '^heaven lies about us in our infancy,'' and 
TertuUian was in a sense right when he said 
^^ religion is natural to man." 

It has already been shown that saving faith is trust 
of the heart in Christ, and that such trust is coin- 
cident with love. In every way this conception is 
to be preferred, for in its Scriptural sense faith is the 
simplest act of the soul. We speak of trust in 
the same connection in which we speak of love, 
for experience teaches that to truly love another 
is to trust another. But trust in Christ, that sur- 
render of self to Him that comes out of love for Him, 
is the essence of saving faith. It is an act of the 
heart and not of the cold intellect, for, as Paul 



ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 57 

tells US, ^ 4t is with the heart that man believeth 
unto righteousness. ' ' We need not go beyond the 
ordinary consciousness of men to be convinced 
that knowledge as such cannot be the measure of 
piety. The logical faculty is not the organ of 
communion with God, nor by its greater or less 
acuteness and activity can a man's spiritual state 
be tested. It is possible to possess rationative 
powers of the highest order, the cultured intelli- 
gence w^hich renders a man a competent literary 
and historic critic, a deft framer even of theolog- 
ical dogmas and systems of divinity, and yet with 
all this intellectual equipment to lack the element 
of saving faith, that state of the heart and affec- 
tions which constitutes the essence of true religion. 
Indeed, if religion is a thing possible for all — if it 
is a relation of the soul to God not conditioned by 
any special gifts or arbitrary acquirements — its es- 
sence must obviously be altogether independent 
of that intellectual ability and culture which are 
far from universal. It must come to the human 
spirit in a way possible for the simplest and rudest 
alike with the most acute and cultured intelligence. 
Our inquiry, therefore, is one that concerns itself 
with the abihty or want of ability of the little 
3* 



58 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

child to trust rather than that of its abihty to 
mentally grasp the truth of certain propositions. 

Now, in answering this question, it is important 
that we bear in mind that the object of saving trust 
is the personal Christ. Not a creed, not a thing, 
not a creation of the mind, but the personal Sav- 
iour. For this a matured intellect is by no means 
essential. It is questionable if the reason has any- 
thing to do with our affections one for another. 
The moment we begin the process of analysis and 
synthesis in respect of those whom we love, affec- 
tion is likely to die out. We love persons because 
they are persons, because we are so created, and it 
is not within the power of the mind to analyze, 
or put in speech, the content of such love. Love 
to a person is in no sense conditioned on intellectual 
knowledge as such, nor does it lie dormant until 
the mind reaches its maturity. 

It is wonderful, yet strangely suggestive of the 
earnestness of the divine purpose to draw all men 
unto Himself, that love is the first power to come 
into being. We grow into physical maturity, and 
not until years have passed do our bodily powers 
attain their full development. It is so with the 
powers of the mind. It is difficult to tell the pre- 



ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 59 

cise period at which the child is capable of intel- 
lection. Possibly the early morning of the child's 
Hfe is spent in the simple receiving of impressions 
that, later on, are taken up and woven by the 
mind into knowledge. But, however that may 
be, it is at least certain that it is not until years 
have passed that the mind becomes capable of lay- 
ing hold of abstract truths such as are expressed 
in Creeds or Dogmas : for the last of our powers 
to reach their maturity are the powers of reflection. 
But it is not so with the powers of love. They 
manifest themselves with the earliest dawn of con- 
sciousness. The first thing for which a mother 
looks is for a response to her affections, and, in 
the smile that plays upon the face of her offspring, 
she reads the evidence of the love for which she 
yearns. Nor do experience or knowledge make 
love more real. Under their influence love be- 
comes more conservative, more rational, more 
lasting, but no more real or intense. The love of 
the child is as deep as that of the man ; indeed, 
if there be any difference, the difference is in favor 
of the child, for in youth we love those whom we 
cannot love with the more mature knowledge of 
after years. But out of this love possessed by the 



60 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

child for another there also comes trust in that 
other. It is in the very nature of the child to 
trustj and it is this that gives infancy its loveliness. 
To its mother it looks for the satisfaction of its 
hunger ; upon her it trusts for protection in mo- 
ments of danger ; to her it yields itself, whether 
consciously or unconsciously, it matters not, in 
all that it is, and in all that it desires. 

Now it is in the light of all this that we are to 
study the relation that the child may sustain to 
Christ. It is certain at least that the little one is 
capable of love. It is just as certain that out of 
this love, that trust, which in experience is never 
separated from love, is present also in the child. 
So far, therefore, as the ability is needed for the 
exercise of saving faith is concerned, the child has 
it. The ability that makes it possible for the child 
to love a human being makes it possible for it to 
love Christ, for Christ, the object of saving faith, 
is also a person, and the heart with which we love 
Him is the same heart out of which comes our 
love for each other. The same ability that makes 
it possible for the child to trust its mother makes 
it possible for it to trust Christ. In both cases the 
power is the same, its operation the same — the 



ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 61 

only difference being in the object. But the mo- 
ment the object of trust is changed, the moment 
Christ is substituted for the parent and the trust 
given to the parent is given to Christ, the act is 
lifted out of the ordinary, and what was before nat- 
ural now becomes saving faith. 

No doubt it will be contended by some that this 
trust of the child in its mother is in no sense faith ; 
that whatever such trust may or may not be, it is 
at least something other than that which in the 
case of the believer goes out to Christ. Nevertheless 
the acts are identical, they involve the same power, 
and both are alike faith. And as such they have 
been conceived by the majority of Christians every- 
where. More and more, as theologians have shaken 
themselves loose from the fetters of scholasticism, 
have they owned the simplicity of faith and found 
in the trust of the child in its parent its highest 
exhibition. In his recent thoughtful work, Pro- 
fessor Samuel Harris, speaking of the child, says : 
^ ' There is no more striking illustration of faith 
than a little child's faith in its father and mother, 
which our Saviour used. It is taken with them 
on a journey ; it knows not whither it is going, 
nor how long it is to travel. It goes out with 



62 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

them, like Abraham under the call of God, not 
knowing whither. But amid whatever new and 
strange scenes, it is peaceful and contented so long 
as its parents are with it, trusting fearlessly to 
them. ' ' 

It was in this sense that the saintly Dr. Thomp- 
son also regarded saving faith. Near the close of 
his life he said : ^ ^ I have at last come back to the 
faith of my childhood. To trust in Christ and in 
Christ alone even as the child trusts its mother, 
this at last is the substance of all that I have 
learned in my study of the Scriptures." And 
Paul' s words are ^ ' To you it is given in behalf of 
Christ to believe on him. ' ' Observe, not in truth 
of His mission, not in the history of His saving 
acts, but on Him and in Him as the personal Sav- 
iour. This it is to be converted and to become as 
little children. 

But we must now turn to another question. 
That the abihty to trust in Christ has been given 
to the little ones there can be no question. But 
admitting that such ability has been given, may it 
not be brought to naught from want of a proper 
knowledge of the One who came to save ? Let us 
explain our meaning. Faith must not only have 



ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 63 

an object, that object must also be known. The 
love out of which trust springs must go out to 
someone. Love cannot exist without another. 
Even God prior to the creation of man needed the 
community of the Trinity to make Him a loving 
God. Alone in the universe and without such a 
community eternally existing in Himself, He could 
not be a loving God. To create love, to keep it 
ahve, someone other than self must exist. But 
such a one must not only exist, he must exist to 
the one in whose soul love is to be awakened. 
In other words, the one loved must be known. It 
is possible for the Uttle child to love its mother be- 
cause it knows her. The face upon which its eyes 
first opened was the face of its mother. The voice 
that it first heard was that of its mother. Beside 
its cradle it beheld her day by day and in her arms 
at life's dawn it yielded itself to sleep. And it is 
this knowledge of her being, this relation to her 
personahty, that calls out the love of the child. 
What that knowledge embraces, what it involves, 
no one can tell. How much, how httle, of the 
real nature of its mother its knowledge includes, 
no one can know. Certain it is that it is not the 
knowledge that is possessed in after years, when a 



64 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

deeper insight of all that motherhood means is at- 
tained. But its knowledge is enough to awaken 
love and the trust that in youth as well as in man- 
hood is sure to attend love. Now all this applies to 
Christ, the object of saving faith. He, too, must 
be known by the child before trust in Him can be 
awakened. But by this is not meant that a knowl- 
edge of all that He is in His person or His work 
must be possessed. That is not necessary. If it 
were, no man could know Christ. 

Let us own that such knowledge is too wonder- 
ful for the one of even mature years and ripened 
understanding. Before these problems the might- 
iest intellect must stand, owning, with the apostle, 
the mystery of godliness, ^^God manifest in the 
flesh." No doubt such higher knowledge of 
Christ in the mystery of His person and being 
makes love more reverent, more rational. But such 
knowledge is not essential to love, any more than 
a knowledge of all that a mother is, or of the re- 
lation she sustains to the child, is essential to its 
love for her. It is the mother that the child 
loves, apart from a reflective consideration of what 
she is or does. Through reflection in after years, 
that love is deepened by a knowledge of all that 



ARE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 65 

she was and of all that she did. But even then 
it is no more real than when in the days of early- 
infancy it went out in ignorance of these very 
things. And so, too, it is possible to love Christ 
without an understanding of the mysteries of His 
person or w^ork. What did the little children 
who sprang into His arms know of either ? Yet 
it was upon these that He put His hands in 
blessing and said, ^^Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven. ' ' 

But while a knowledge of what Christ was in His 
innermost nature is not an indispensable con- 
dition of trust, yet He Himself must be known, 
a knowledge of Him and what He did is essential 
to trust. But is such knowledge possible to the 
child? We must not answer this question too 
hastily. Often it has been answered in the neg- 
ative, for the reason that the results of such denial 
have not been fully considered. Few if any are 
ready to accept the conclusions which such denials 
involve, or to affirm, as they must, that children 
are excluded from the operations of the Holy Spirit, 
whose mission, as we are told, is to 'Hake the 
things of Christ and to show them unto us. ' ' Not 
so do most men reason. The energy of love goes 



66 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

out in making itself known. The best and only 
proof of God- s love is to be found in the fact that 
He revealed Himself to men. It is not in love to 
hide itself from the one beloved. Its very existence 
depends and is conditioned upon its manifestation. 
To deny that Christ may be revealed to the little 
ones is either to deny that they are loved of God, 
or affirm that the Holy Spirit is powerless to make 
Christ known. ^Mth the first of these conclusions 
the heart is at war ; against the latter reason 
utters its protest ; both are utterly false. To the 
little child that has been properly instructed in the 
Scriptures the consciousness of the nearness of 
Christ is such as seldom comes in after years. 
After all, it is true that God is the earhest environ- 
ment of all such, more real than the objects of sense, 
that appeal to the eye or that respond to the touch. 
To the attentive soul, whether it be the aged Eli 
or the little child Samuel, God strives to speak. 
More readily known is He than objects of sense, 
for to the spirit it is given to intuitively know what 
is most hke itself. 

And so it appears that neither from want of ability 
to trust nor yet from want of ability to know Christ 
are the little ones shut out from the exercise 



ABE CHILDREN CAPABLE OF FAITH? 67 

of saving faith. True, if the child never hears of 
Christ, if it has not been given to Him in baptism, 
if the Holy Scriptures are never read in its hearing, 
then a knowledge of Christ must be wanting. But 
for this the parent alone is to blame, for how can 
they beheve on Him of whom they have not heard ? 
But in the home in which the atmosphere is made 
religious, in which God is made the child's envi- 
ronment, faith is the earliest and the easiest of pos- 
sibilities. 



Original sin is a want of original righteousness, con- 
nected with a depraved inclination, corrupting the most 
inward parts, the whole human nature, derived from the 
fall of our first parents and propagated to all men by nat- 
ural generation, rendering them indisposed to spiritual 
good, but inclined to evil Everything fol- 
lows the seeds of its own nature. No ferocious lion ever 
produces a gentle lamb, and no man polluted with inborn 
sin ever begets a holy child. — Hollazius. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE UNIVERSAL NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 

That which is horn of the flesh is flesh; and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit. — John hi. 6. 

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul tells us that 
the thing of universal and transcendent impor- 
tance is the ^^New Creature." ^'For in Christ 
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor 
uncircumcision, but a new creature." It would 
seem that this simple, concise, and unqualified 
statement ought to be sufficient answer to the 
question, What is necessary to salvation? Nor 
is it difficult for one loyal to the teaching of the 
Scripture to discover weighty reasons for this 
unqualified utterance. 

In His conversation with Nicodemus, Christ 

enforces the same truth. To this ruler of the 

Pharisees the new birth, of which Christ had just 

spoken, seemed inexplicable. ^^How," he asks, 

" can a man be born when he is old ? '' It is to 

this question that Christ gives answer: ^'That 

(69) 



70 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit." In this answer 
a law is announced from which there has never 
been a single departure. 

Teeming as the world is with life, every living 
thing is precisely what its birth determined it to be. 
The limits fixed by birth are never transcended by 
simple growth. To be born into the world is to be 
born of the flesh, and by no possibility, resident in 
itself, can that which is so born become anything 
other than what it essentially is. Growth is but the 
unfolding of the nature inwrought in every living 
thing. The seed holds within itself the future flower 
of its own species, but no other. Out of such a 
seed there can never come an oak, or even a plant 
differing from it in species. Every seed produces 
life ^^ after its own kind," and no seed in its after 
development has power to transcend the limits 
fixed by its own nature. The ant remains an ant. 
It never becomes possessed of the powers belong- 
ing to a higher order of species. The bee, under 
the working of the same law, continues from gen- 
eration to generation the same, and at no point 
in its history does it put aside the limitations of 
its lower, or put on the belongings of a higher 



THE UNIVERSAL NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 71 

nature. It is so all through. The law to which 
Christ called the attention of Nicodemus is invari- 
able — ^'That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; 
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 

If any man, therefore, is to enter upon a higher 
life, or to rise from the natural into the spiritual, 
he must somehow come into possession of a new 
nature, a nature to which the attributes of the 
spiritual life belong. And this necessity is uni- 
versal. The law, ^ ^ except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God," has no excep- 
tions. It applies to the little child in its innocence, 
and touches the old man leaning on the top of his 
staff. It is not by some arbitrary or superinduced 
law that the natural man is shut out from the 
spiritual hfe. It is by the old law, the wisdom 
of which is seen and acknowledged everywhere 
throughout the physical universe ; that nature 
ever abides the same, ever continues true to itself. 
The limits that environ the natural man arise out 
of his nature. Accordingly we have no contro- 
versy with the one who speaks of the purity and 
the innocence of childhood. Doubtless, it was 
this very innocence, so characteristic of early child- 
hood, that attracted the heart of Jesus, and that 



72 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

inspired the reproof that He administered to His 
disciples, ^^ Suffer the Uttle children to come unto 
me." But innocence is one thing and the new 
life another, and between the two there is no causal 
relation. Let it be owned that the child is in no 
sense personally responsible for the nature that it 
inherits. Its freedom from such responsibility is 
not the equivalent of the new birth. The de- 
ficiency resides in the nature that the child inherits, 
and \t is this that brings it under the law, to which 
Christ referred when He said, ' ^ That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh." It is just as though He 
had said, ^ ' The possibilities of the spiritual nature 
are not those of the physical, nor are they such as 
can arise out of the natural. ' ' Spiritual realities, 
spiritual possibilities, spiritual experiences, both 
here and in the after-life, are conditioned upon the 
spiritual birth. It is not, therefore, a question as 
to the guilt or innocence of the child ; the diffi- 
culty is deeper, and resides in the nature, from 
which neither guilt nor innocence opens the way of 
escape. Being born of the flesh, it needs the birth 
from above in order that it may be introduced into 
the spiritual life, and to make it a partaker of those 
experiences of which the spiritual life is the un- 



THE UNIVERSAL NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 73 

folding. And all this is to say that the infant, 
as well as the mature man, needs the hfe that 
Christ came to communicate. Without union 
with Him, who alone is our life, the infant as well 
as the man is devoid of the spiritual life ; for it 
is through such union that the new life is inaugu- 
rated. Its connection with the old Adam, through 
the flesh, necessitates its connection with the new 
Adam, through the Spirit. Perhaps by no recent 
writer has the gulf between the natural and the 
spiritual been so clearly set forth, or the universal 
need of a birth from above been so vividly illus- 
trated, as by the gifted Professor Drummond, 
in his ' ' Natural Law in the Spiritual World. ' ' 
' ' The passage, ' ' says he, ' ' from the natural world 
to the spiritual is hermetically sealed on the natu- 
ral side. The door from the inorganic to the or- 
ganic is shut, and no mineral can open it. So 
the door from the natural to the spiritual is shut, 
and no man can open it. This world of the natu- 
ral is staked off from the spiritual world by bar- 
riers which have never yet been crossed from 
within. No organic change, no modification of 
environment, no mental energy, no moral effort, 
no evolution of character, no progress of civihza- 
4 



74 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

tion, can endow any single human soul with the 
attribute of the spiritual life. The spiritual world 
is guarded from the world next in order beneath 
it by the law of biogenesis, ' ' Except a man be born 
again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." 

Let us put the emphasis on the emphatic word 
' ^ cannot. " It is not said of the fleshly born he 
^ ' may not ; ' ' the word is absolute and uncon- 
ditioned, ' ' he cannot. ' ' Just as effectually as the 
organic world is closed to the inorganic, so effec- 
tually is the spiritual life closed to the natural. 
If the chasm is, therefore, to be crossed, and the 
natural man lifted into the realm of the spiritual, a 
birth from above is unconditioned and universally 
necessary. Innocence can do nothing for us. 
Freedom from personal guilt communicates noth- 
ing to nature. No power but the birth from 
above can quicken the dead soul, or make man 
other than what the birth of the flesh determines 
that he shall be. 

But here the question may be asked : ' ' Why 
this insistence upon a truth so evident in iteelf, 
and to which no one takes exception?" Our 
reply is that such exceptions are taken. By some 
it is thought that the doctrine of man's universal 



THE UNIVERSAL NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 75 

need of regeneration assumes too much, and, if 
carried to its logical conclusions, takes us too far. 
Unswerving loyalty to truth is, after all, not a 
common virtue. Many to whom the charge of 
disloyalty would give offense abandon truth the 
moment that it brings them into collision with 
cherished opinions or preconceived prejudices, 
forgetful of the fact that the truth cannot lead to 
conclusions at war with the best instincts of the 
soul. Yet the question is asked, ^^What is to 
become of our Uttle ones, if need of regeneration 
be universal ? ' ' Since union with Christ is the 
condition of spiritual life, and since union is ef- 
fected alone through faith, how can a new birth 
be a requirement when such faith is impossible ? 
And thus in the supposed interests of infants, the 
universal need of regeneration is denied. Some- 
how, other than by the new birth, the nature alike 
in the infant and in the one of mature years must 
be transformed. But how this is accomplished 
no denier of the universal need of regeneration 
can tell. No intimation as to the method comes 
either from nature or revelation, for both, as we 
have seen, bear witness to the stern fact that the 
spiritual is never evolved out of the natural. 



76 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

Let US own that even the suggestion of the pos- 
sibiUty of the exclusion of the httle ones from 
the provisions of grace is at war with the best 
instincts of the heart. No mother^ beheving that 
God has made no provision for her Httle one, of 
whom death had robbed her, could reconcile her- 
self to a belief in His love, or longer in prayer 
speak to Him as Father. It is inconceivable that 
He, who, during His ministry here below, took 
the little children into His arms and said, ' ' Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven," should pro- 
vide no way for their salvation. Nor does anyone 
from the heart believe that. Even those doctrinal 
predilections, according to which, under certain 
conditions, infants are shut out, have always been 
abandoned in the serious and candid moment 
when those professing them have stood by the 
grave of their own children. There is an inner 
certainty that the one dying in infancy is safe, 
and this certainty rests on the conviction that 
God's provisions are always in harmony with His 
infinite love. Still, the words of Christ, ' ' Except 
a man be born from above, he cannot see the king- 
dom of heaven," are true. How or by what 
means this new life, in the instance of those dying 



THE UNIVERSAL NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 77 

in infancy, is effected we know not, nor need it 
concern us. 

The question, ^ ' How are we to be saved ? " is 
pre-eminently a question for the Uving, and that 
for all the living. Certain it is that to be born of 
the flesh is to be inheritor of a nature wholly 
corrupted by sin, and utterly devoid of the power 
to work the retrieval of its lost condition. '^Be- 
hold, ' ' cries the Psalmist, ' ^ I was shapen in 
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
me." Our weakness, our absolute need of a 
birth from above, is written in our nature. 
When, in the moonlight of the Orient, Christ 
spoke the words, ^ ^ That which is born of the 
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the 
Spirit is spirit," He told at once man's helpless- 
ness by nature, and his universal and absolute 
need of the new birth of which He was speaking. 



Baptism is not simply water, but it is the water com- 
prehended in God^s command and connected with God^s 
word. — Luther's Catechism. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EEGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 

Except a man he horn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 
the kingdom of God. — John hi. 5. 

We have just been speaking of the universal 
need of regeneration. To be born by natural gen- 
eration, according to the teaching of Christ, is to 
be in possession simply of the natural and tem- 
poral life. And man has been created for the spir- 
itual. He alone of all created beings has been 
created for the divine habitation. ^^Thou hast 
created us for Thyself," said Augustine, and the 
cry of the Psalmist to the living God is, ^ ' Be thou 
my strong habitation unto which I may continually 
resort." Our home is in God, and God finds in 
us His chosen dwelling-place. In the experience 
that comes out of such a relation to God do we find 
our full satisfaction and the true end of our crea- 
tion. But as the natural life has its own door of 
entrance, so has also the spiritual. We enter the 
one through natural generation, the other through 
regeneration. 

(79) 



80 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

But what is regeneration ? It may be said that 
two definitions have divided the opinion of theologi- 
cal writers. According to one, it is a state of pardon 
and of actual goodness. According to the other, 
it is a state of pardon and a new or infused capac- 
ity for goodness. Both of these definitions, if ac- 
cepted in the simple sense conveyed by the words, 
are correct. It is true that regeneration in its 
completeness always means actual goodness ; and 
it is just as true that the power out of which the 
new life comes is a new and infused power. The 
power of the new life is always a supernatural and 
not a natural power. But whether or not the new 
capacity for goodness passes into a state of act- 
ual goodness depends on the personal faith of 
the individual to whom the new capacity has been 
given. God does not deal with men as He does 
with material things. He recognizes our freedom 
and in every work of grace seeks our co-operation. 
And what is more, it is possible for man to bring 
the divine purpose in his salvation to naught at 
any point of the divine procedure. The failure 
to give this fact its proper weight has blinded the 
eyes of the advocates of each of the definitions given 
to the truth contained in the other. That regenera- 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 81 

tion and baptism are connected in the Scriptures 
needs hardly to be proven. Paul, speaking of bap- 
tism, calls it 'Hhe bath of regeneration," and as 
such the church has universally regarded it. While 
looking upon the sacrament of the altar as insti- 
tuted with special reference to the nourishment 
of the new life, the church has commonly regarded 
baptism as the specially ordained sacrament 
through which the new life is communicated. 

But, in considering the subject of regeneration, we 
must not overlook the fact that, while dealing with 
a supernatural order of life, we are still dealing 
with life, and hence with that that is under the 
government of law. The new life is not lawless. It 
has its normal beginning and development, and 
the laws that hold in respect of all life hold also in 
the realm of the regenerate. One of these is the 
law that no life is complete at its beginning. That 
it may be complete, it needs to be developed, and 
this development is in all cases dependent on appro- 
priate nourishment. The life that is in the seed 
newly quickened is not the same in measure or 
perfection as the life that exists in the perfect plant. 
In each step of the process of growth the life be- 
comes fuller, unfolding more and more the poten- 
4^ 



82 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

tial life of the germ until perfection is reached. 
But though more and more perfect as growth goes 
on the life at any point is identical with that of 
the germ, is but a continuation of the living history 
that began at the time of quickening. But no liv- 
ing thing is perfect at the beginning or leaps full- 
fledged from the womb of nature. That this is 
true of the regenerate life also is clearly taught 
by Christ. In the fourth chapter of Mark, he 
tells us that the history of the new life, like that 
of the natural, is, ^ ' First the blade, then the ear, 
after that the full corn in the ear. ' ' It has its 
moment of beginning, its period of enlargement, 
and we are told that in God's own time it will come 
to its perfection, for ^^He which hath begun a 
good work in you will finish it until the day of 
Jesus Christ. ' ' And this fact is also confirmed by 
experience. 

No truly regenerate man looks upon himself as 
being the same that he was the moment he first 
laid hold by faith of Christ and felt within him 
the joy of the new life. He knows that he has 
grown stronger. He knows that while at the be- 
ginning he was a babe, he has steadily gone on to 
the full stature of manhood in Christ Jesus. He 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 83 

kiunvs that ho isstrongor, aiul that lie is so because 
he possesses more of the spiritual hfe thau he pos- 
sessed at the beginuing. The Scriptures speak of 
a f uUncss of Hfe and of a hfe ' ' more abundant. ' ' 
It matters not ^vhat it may be called, whether it 
goes by the name of '^Christian development," 
or ^^A going into perfection/' or '^Growth in 
grace/' the secret of it all is the nature of the new 
life to become more and more abundant. And 
yet with the fully developed Christian the life, al- 
though more abundant, is yet the same life that 
was connnunicated through faith and baptism at 
the beginning. The idea of a ^'second blessing '' is 
foreign to the Scripture, and the larger experience 
and greater power for which the phrase is meant 
to stand is but a fuller measure of the life com- 
municated at the tivst. 

But while development, or wdiatis known as the 
more abundant life, is the normal rule, there is 
yet another law that in the world of natural things 
has been called the law of ''degeneration." A 
careful study of nature proves the presence and 
operation of this law also. The process is not 
always upward into a fuller life, it is sometimes 
downward, ending in extinction. The little oerm 



84 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

that the moisture of the earth and the warmth of 
the sun have called out of the seed does not always 
develop into the full-grown plant. The life fos- 
tered in the egg does not always develop or carry 
itself forward into the mature life of the bird. 
The germ of grain may die from lack of proper 
nourishment, and that of the egg may perish from 
lack of the warmth necessary to its after develop- 
ment. But in each case the life was actually pre- 
sent, though it did not reach its perfection ; and the 
fact that it stopped short is no proof that it was 
not actually begun. Had conditions been favor- 
able, the life that was begun, and which from want 
of proper nourishment perished, might have gone 
to its full maturity. Now, in the light of all this, 
we are better prepared to estimate the force of two 
objections to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration 
which to the practical mind have seemed unanswer- 
able. The first is the one based on the fact that 
many who have been baptized either in infancy or 
later in life give no evidences of such regeneration. 
They live the life of the worlding, and the fruits of 
the Spirit, love, joy, peace, always present in the 
life of the fully regenerate, are wanting. They 
live as other men live, not as strangers or pilgrims. 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 85 

or as those whose conversation is in heaven, but as 
men whose home is the earth and whose God is 
their lusts. Such cases are common. But how 
are they to be explained, if regeneration or the im- 
planting of the new life is always effected in bap- 
tism ? It has been this testimony, furnished by 
lives that give no evidence of regeneration, that 
has shaken the confidence of some in the doctrine 
so clearly stated in the Scripture. As a conse- 
quence, the necessity of baptism is denied, and we 
are told that whatever importance is to be attached 
to it is to be found in its value as a symbol, and 
that faith alone, apart from the outward rite, is 
sufficient to unite us with Christ, incorporate us 
into His kingdom, and effect in us the new person- 
ality. 

The second objection to the doctrine that we 
are considering rests on a moral basis, and may 
thus be stated : God is a just being, whose will 
is that no one should be lost. And, being just, 
He will impose no impossible conditions upon any 
who truly desire to be saved. But, under circum- 
stances that may easily be imagined, baptism may 
become such a barrier. Indeed, under circum- 
stances that are continually occurring, some are de- 



86 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

nied the rite even to the last. To others the moment 
of awakening comes late, as it did to the thief on 
the cross, and under conditions most unfavorable. 
Some, through no fault of their own, but through 
circumstances or the fault of others, die unbaptized, 
for it is not given to all to choose whether be- 
liever or infidel shall minister the last act. But 
what is to be said of all these, and what is to be 
thought of the justice of a being who has made re- 
generation contingent upon a rite, and left without 
provision all to whom, for any reason, the rite 
has been denied ? 

Such, as briefly as we can state them, are the 
two objections that have told with most force 
against the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as 
taught in the Scripture and accepted by the 
church. Now it must, in fairness, be said that 
both of these objections spring out of misconcep- 
tions. The latter out of a misconception of what 
the doctrine actually implies. The former out of a 
misconception of regeneration itself. No intelligent 
advocate of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration 
would claim for a moment that the relation be- 
tween baptism and regeneration is absolute and 
unconditional. The relation is one by which the 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 87 

church alone is bound. For her it is the normal re- 
lation. Ordinarily the new life is opened in bap- 
tism, and it is the ordinary by which in this as 
in all instances we are to be bound. But, while 
the church has recognized herself as bound by 
the rite, she has contended for the freedom of her 
Lord to establish His new creation in the soul of 
whomsoever and in whatsoever manner He may 
choose. He is bound by no sacrament and will 
always do right. Accordingly, the canon of the 
church has been that ^ ^ It is not the unavoidable 
absence of the sacrament, but neglect of it, that 
excludes from the new life." And thus, when 
understood in its true sense, the objection to the 
doctrine of baptismal regeneration based on its 
seeming injustice disappears. For all such cases 
in which the administration of the rite has for 
any reason been impossible the doctrine makes 
allowance without minimizing the importance of 
the sacrament. And this is its merit. Any con- 
ception of baptism that lessens our respect for it, 
or tends to encourage neglect of the ordinance, is 
by that very fact proven to be false. 

But, as the objection just considered springs out 
of a misconception, so also does the one suggested 



88 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

by the unworthy Uves of some who have been 
baptized. It is true that all who have been bap- 
tized do not give evidence of regeneration. They 
live as other men live, and the fruit by which the 
existence of the new life in the soul is proven is 
wanting. It is this experience, as has already 
been said, that awakens suspicion of the truth of 
the doctrine. For, if regeneration is conveyed in 
baptism, then are we not to look for the evidences 
of such regeneration in the life of all who have 
been baptized, and does not the absence of such 
evidence point to the conclusion that no necessary 
connection exists between the rite and the new 
birth ? Now in this objection there is both truth 
and error. It is true that, normally and under 
proper conditions, fruit is the test of the new life. 
The test of fruitage is a test, the validity of which 
was recognized by our Saviour in the words, ^ ' By 
their fruits ye shall know them. ' ' 

The regenerate life has its characteristic fruits, 
even as the natural has its, and in its maturity and 
fullness such fruit is never wanting. Under such 
conditions fruit is always the test of the new 
birth. But it is not true that the presence or 
absence of the new life is always to be determined 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 89 

by the test of fruit-bearing. The new Hfe maj^ 
exist in the soul, the person may have been born 
from above, and the outward evidences at least for 
a time be wanting. In the matured tree, growing 
under proper conditions, we look for fruit. But 
not from the newly quickened seed or even from 
the immature stem. The law of life is : first the 
blade and then the ear, afterward the full corn in 
the ear. Fruit belongs to the after-history and is 
produced under conditions that may be wanting 
at the beginning. But the beginning is as truly 
life as is the maturity, though in maturity the life 
is more perfect and abundant. But what is the 
law in the case of living things around us may 
safely be assumed to be the law in the case of the 
life known as the new birth. For regeneration is 
not a work begun and completed in the soul in an 
instant. It has its history, and under favorable 
conditions goes on to greater and greater perfection. 
Now^ it is in these considerations that the 
answer to the objection to baptismal regener- 
ation, based on the fact that the fruit of the new 
life is not always present in those who have been 
baptized, is to be found. The absence of such 
fruit is no more a proof of the absence of the new 



90 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

life than is the want of fruit in the case of the tree 
that is surrounded by unfavorable conditions a 
proof that there is no life in it. The want of 
such fruit usually points to unfavorable conditions 
rather than the absence of life. And this is the 
teaching of the barren fig tree. The tree was 
alive, but it was fruitless. What it needed was a 
more favorable environment. '^ I will dig about 
it and dung it," said the owner. Had the tree 
not been a living tree, no change of conditions 
could have made it bear fruit. After all, life is one 
thing and fruit-bearing is another. Life is an 
emanation from God ; fruitage the result of con- 
ditions for which we are usually responsible. 

It is so with the new life. Implanted in bap- 
tism, it requires the presence of the proper condi- 
tions that it may go out in fruit-bearing. And 
these conditions are supplied in personal faith. 
In those cases in which the rite and faith go 
together, fruit may immediately be expected, for 
in such cases the new life finds its proper con- 
ditions. But in the case of those baptized in 
infancy, the implanted life must await the advent 
of faith. For years no fruit may appear ; indeed, 
for want of the conditions that faith alone sup- 



REGENERATION AND BAPTISM. 91 

plies, the implanted life may perish. But, in 
either case, the new life was present, although 
from want of faith it failed to produce fruit. 



Eegeneration is by no means concluded with baptism, 
but the foundation of it is therein laid ; and it is not there- 
fore baptism alone which saves, but baptism and faith. — 
Martensen. 



CHAPTER IX. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



Go ye therefore J and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
— Matt, xxviii. 19. 

In the times lying nearest the ministry of our 

Lord and His apostles, the fitness of infants for 

baptism was not called into question. It was not 

until two centuries had passed that the first 

protest against the universal practice of baptizing 

infants was uttered. Of this protest TertuUian 

was the author. Born in the year A. D. 160, and 

dying at the ripe age of eighty, he was the most 

eccentric of the church fathers. About the middle 

of his hfe he wrote what is now recognized as the 

earliest treatise on baptism, in which he earnestly 

advises against the administration of the rite to 

infants. Holding as he did that ^ ' Baptism of itself 

washes away sins and that sins committed after 

baptism were peculiarly dangerous," he opposed 

not only the baptism of infants but of all, until 

(93) 



94 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

the period of ^ ^ youthful appetites and passions 
should have passed." 

Indeed, he advised that in all cases in which 
death was not likely to intervene, baptism should 
be postponed until the subjects of it should have 
arrived at a period of life where they would no 
longer be in danger of being led astray. He says, 
^ ' If any understand the weighty import of baptism 
they will fear its reception more than its delay." 
And in this he was consistent. For if baptism in it- 
self purges away sins, then its administration should 
be withheld until the very last. But in his concep- 
tion of baptism he was without sympathy in his 
day, and as a consequence the argument that he 
based upon his assumption as to the nature of the 
ordinance produced little effect. ^ ^ His whole ar- 
gument," says Dr. Schaff, ^^ rests upon false pre- 
mises which were not admitted by the church, and 
his protest fell without an echo. ' ' From Tertullian 
onward, the universal practice of infant baptism is 
proved by the clearest and most abundant testi- 
mony. 

Origen, who was contemporary with Tertullian, 
declares that ' ' The church derived an order from 
the apostles to baptize infants," and that ^'accord- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 95 

ing to the custom of the church baptism is admin- 
istered to infants who would not need the grace of 
baptism if there were nothing in them that needed 
forgiveness and mercy. ' ' Chrysostom, born in the 
year 347 and who died in exile in 407, says, ^ ' Our 
circumcision, I mean baptism, comes without pain 
and procures for us a thousand benefits and fills 
us with the grace of the Spirit, and has no fixed 
time as circumcision had, but one that is in the 
beginning of his age, or one that is in middle age, 
or one that is in old age, may receive this circum- 
cision without hands. ' ' Augustine, in the begin- 
ning of the fifth century, says, ' ' The whole church 
practices infant baptism. It was not instituted by 
councils, but was always in use." Pelagius, al- 
though denying original sin, and who on that ac- 
count was charged by some with opposing himself 
to the practice of baptizing infants, complains that 
he was misrepresented, and says, ^ ^ Men slander 
me by the charge that I deny baptism of infants. 
I never heard of anyone, not the most impious 
heretic, who denied baptism to infants. ' ' 

The schoolmen, too, defended the practice that 
had been continued in the church from the begin- 
ning, and based its necessity on the universal need 



96 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

of regeneration which in their conception was con- 
veyed in baptism. Historically, it may be said 
that the argaiment defending the practice of infant 
baptism is unanswerable. 

But in this important duty the church of 
to-day is by no means as faithful as was the 
church of the past. Outside the Catholic and 
Anglican folds, the obligation of the church to 
her children is now largely denied. For this 
many reasons may be assigned. The first and 
without doubt the most prominent is the indif- 
ference to the sacraments resulting from a lack 
of proper appreciation of the place that the 
supernatural holds in our religion. From the creed 
of many the supernatural has been largely elimi- 
nated, and a rationalism that seeks to find a nat- 
ural explanation for all things has taken its place. 
What can be understood is believed, and that for 
which no explanation can be given in terms of the 
natural is discredited. It is in this mood that 
many approach the mystery of baptism. What 
efl&cacy can there be in the application of water to 
the head of an infant ? What connection can pos- 
sibly exist between a rite and the new birth ? 
These are the modern forms of the question asked 



INFANT BAPTISM. 97 

by Nicodemus in the moment that he stood face 
to face with the mystery of the new birth. To 
this spirit pervading the reHgious atmosphere of 
our times more than to any other cause is the pre- 
sent neglect of infant baptism to be attributed. For 
the necessary outcome of the prevalence of this 
spirit is the practical denial of the importance of 
the sacraments and a disbelief in the operations 
of the Holy Spirit through them. 

But to the neglect of this duty other causes 
have also contributed. It has been urged that 
the practice of baptizing infants has no definite 
warrant ; that no specific command imposing it 
as an obligation and no undeniable instance of 
its practice occur in the New Testament. 

To this it may be replied that no such command 
under the circumstances ought to be expected. 
What is and has been for centuries the religious 
practice of a people needs no command to give it 
authority. Wherever Christ and His disciples 
went they found the practice already in vogue. It 
had for its authority all the traditions of the past, 
and had ingrained itself for centuries into the re- 
ligious habits of the people to whom Christ spoke 
and among whom He labored. For this reason 
5 



98 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

there was need rather of a command prohibiting 
its practice, if it had not been the purpose of Christ 
that it should be continued in the church. It is 
true that He was silent, that no command author- 
izing the baptizing of infants fell from His lips. 
But His silence, when read in the light of the cus- 
toms of the day, but confirms the practice and 
gives warrant to the conclusion that He looked 
upon it with favor and meant that it should be 
continued in His church. 

But the Scriptures are not silent. In three well- 
authenticated instances it is morally certain that 
the apostles baptized infants. That the households 
of Cornelius, of Lydia, and of the Phihppian jailer 
were childless can hardly be thought in the light 
of the fact that, among the Jews, children were 
looked upon as a heritage from the Lord, and the 
blessedness of the one who had ^ ^ his quiver full of 
them ' ' was sung by their greatest poet. But the 
practice of infant baptism has its specific warrant 
in the Scriptures. In the commission, ^ ^ Go ye and 
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them," that 
warrant is distinctly given. It is true that in that 
commission infants are not specially mentioned. 
Neither are women, neither are children, nor even 



INFANT BAPTISM. 99 

the aged. And the reason is that the term nations 
needed not so to be defined or that the various 
classes composing them be severally indicated to 
make it understood by the apostles. And as they 
understood the command, so they fulfilled it, es- 
tablishing, as has already been shown, a tradition 
that for centuries in the church was never ques- 
tioned. But another objection to the baptism of 
infants must also be mentioned. It is the objection 
that rests itself in the position that infants are and 
must, from the nature of the case, be devoid of faith. 
It is held that faith is an indispensable requisite 
for baptism ; that the obligation to be baptized in- 
volves belief ; and that, since infants are incapable 
of belief, they are not fit candidates. To this it 
is replied that, since faith is the gift of God, He 
can and does confer it whenever and on whomso- 
ever He will. Yet, let it be owned that all 
things are possible with God, the question still 
remains. Does God do all that with Him is within 
the realm of the physically possible? To this, 
the real question in its relation to infant faith, the 
Scripture gives no answer. Nor ought the ques- 
tion, as to the possibility or impossibility of infant 
faith, concern us for the reason that it touches 



100 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

the subject of infant baptism but remotely, if at 
all. The error that underlies the discussion both 
pro and con is in the assumption that faith and 
the administration of the rite must of necessity be 
simultaneous acts. It assumes that baptism and 
its grace, viz. , a complete regeneration, are insep- 
arable in point of time. This is a grave error and 
leads to much confusion of thought. That faith 
and repentance are necessary to the full benefits 
of baptism is undoubtedly true. To this the 
Scriptures bear abundant testimony. But it is not 
true that regeneration in its fuller sense and faith 
are necessarily connected in point of time ; nor is 
it true that baptism, in order to be effective, must, 
at the moment of its administration, be accompa- 
nied by faith. 

That this is the case is evident from the nature 
of regeneration itself. It has already been shown 
that regeneration in its true sense involves two 
things, the imparting of a new and supernatural 
life, on the one hand, and actual goodness on the 
other, or what is the same, the divine life infused, 
and that act of personal assent of the soul neces- 
sary to fruit-bearing. The first, or implanting of 
the new life, is the work of Christ in baptism. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 101 

By it He lays the foundation of His church and 
kingdom in the soul, in virtue of which regenera- 
tion becomes a germinal possibihty. The second 
is the act of the Holy Spirit, engendering per- 
sonal faith, without which regeneration is only 
begun, but not completed. Neither of these acts, 
alone and apart from the other, constitutes regen- 
eration ; they go together and are inseparable. 
When faith exists at the moment of baptism they 
are simultaneous, and complete regeneration is at 
once effected. But the two acts, that of Christ 
wrought for us and that of the Holy Spirit wrought 
in us, and by which faith is engendered, are but 
one and the same gracious work, the objective and 
the subjective, the essential and the personal. In 
the case of those of riper years they may coexist. 
The new hfe implanted by Christ in baptism may 
at once assert itself in personal goodness or fruit- 
bearing. Indeed, where faith exists, this is the 
normal experience. But, in the case of the in- 
fant, or in that of the adult in whom faith is 
wanting, the acts must of necessity be separate in 
point of time or baptism becomes a source of peril 
to the soul. The position that absolute certainty 
of the existence of faith at the moment of bap- 



102 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

tism is essential to its efficacy is "antenable for the 
very reason that such certainty can never be had. 

This was the position taken by many of the di- 
vines of the Reformation^ and in this they followed 
the testimony of the fathers. They looked upon 
baptism in the case of the infant as an ^ ' anticipa- 
tory rite, ' ' which though it might not be beneficial 
at the time in the sense of conveying with it regene- 
ration in its fullest sense, yet became beneficial 
when faith came into being. They held that the 
grace of the sacrament was not tied to the time of 
its administration, that the simultaneity of the 
sign and the thing signified is not necessary, but 
that, on the contrary, the sign may precede the 
grace by an indefinite interval. 

And in this position they had for their support 
the authority from which our Saviour drew His 
profoundest analogies of spiritual laws and pro- 
cesses, the book of nature. We have already spoken 
of the seed. It is a living thing. If it were not, 
the rain and the sunshine would be powerless to 
coax out of its shell either the blade or the ear. 
But, though alive, it may lie in the soil an inde- 
finite period before entering upon its actual devel- 
opment in blade or fruit. Though living, it needs 



INFANT BAPTISM. 103 

the aid that it gets in the rain and the sunshine to 
call out its powers and to bring them to their ma- 
turity. For these helps it may wait long. But 
when they come and the process of growth is be- 
gun, the life of the seed and that of the plant are 
the same life. It is so with the new life implanted 
in baptism. In the soul in which it has been im- 
planted it may remain for an indefinite period, 
awaiting the coming of faith. But when faith 
comes and the living seed is quickened into a 
fuller life there has been no break in the 
life. Between the time of the implanting and 
that of growth a period may have elapsed, but the 
life is the same. And that is to say that baptism 
and its grace are not inseparable in point of time, 
that the seed may be implanted although its de- 
velopment may not immediately follow. 

But the position just stated finds its most power- 
ful support in the law of baptism itself. It is univer- 
sally conceded that baptism admits of but a single 
administration. Standing for what it does, it under 
no circumstances admits of repetition. This being 
the case, the position that the grace of baptism 
and the rite are inseparable in point of time be- 
comes untenable. It hinges the destiny of the 



104 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

soul on the simultaneity of faith and the rite, and 
thus makes baptism a thing to be dreaded instead 
of a privilege to be coveted. For who can tell, even 
after the most careful investigation, who among a 
number of candidates for baptism are at the 
moment in possession of faith? And who can 
affirm with absolute certainty, even for himself, 
whether at the critical moment of his own baptism 
faith is really coincident with the rite ? If the co- 
existence of baptism and of faith are uncondition- 
ally essential, then the church must postpone 
baptism indefinitely, indeed forever in this world. 
Against all such narrowness the parable of the 
sower tells. Unremittingly he sowed his seed, 
though some fell by the wayside and some even 
was lost. If simultaneity of faith and the rite 
are essential and baptism admits of but a single 
administration, then to baptize multitudes as did 
the apostles is to tamper with men's souls and to 
assume the enormous risk of shutting men out of 
the covenant of grace forever. Nor does such a 
position as this receive any warrant in the Scrip- 
tures. They indeed insist on moral qualifications 
for the reception of the grace of baptism, but 
attach no conditions of time, nor do they ever 



INFANT BAPTISM. 106 

once imply that the grace, in order to be had, sub- 
sequently must have been conferred simultaneously 
with the administration of the rite. 

Now the bearing of all that has been said on the 
question of infant baptism is at once apparent. 
Let it be owned that infants are devoid of faith. 
They are not for that reason to be denied the seal 
of the covenant of grace. What if the new life 
implanted does not at once come to its maturity 
in complete regeneration ? What if for a time it 
must await the coming of faith, even as the seed 
hidden in the ground must await the sunshine and 
rain ? Still the seed should be implanted. Faith 
comes earlier than we think. Under the influence 
of Christian instruction and nurture faith is one of 
the very earliest of possibilities. ^ ^ Therefore, " 
said Luther, ^ ^ I will not base baptism upon my 
faith, but my faith again shall base and build 
itself upon my baptism. ' ' 
5^ 



Church membership is the birth-right of all who are 
born of Christian parents. This Christian birth-right 
is recognized and confirmed in the baptism of infants. 
— H. J. Van Dyke. 

To be unbaptized, therefore, is a grievous injury and 
reproach, and one which no parent can innocently entail 
upon a child. — Hodge, Theology, 3, page 579. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE BENEFITS OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ; and if ye be Chrisfs^ then are ye Abraham^ s 
seedy and heirs according to the promise. — Gal. hi. 27, 29. 

What are the benefits of infant baptism ? No 
one can fully tell. Of one thing we are certain, 
and that is, that baptism is a means of grace. As 
such its benefits are mainly two-fold. 

First, through it the new life is communicated 
and the subject made a member of the kingdom 
of heaven. '' Except a man be born of water and 
the Spirit,'' said Christ, ^^he cannot enter the 
kingdom of God." To be saved the infant needs 
to be regenerated, and the divinely appointed 
means to this end, as Paul teaches, is the ' ' wash- 
ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." Another benefit of baptism is that by 
it the infant is included in the covenant and made 
heir of the ^ ' everlasting promise. " ^ ' For as 
many as have been baptized into Christ," says 

(107) 



108 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

Paul, '' are Abraham's seed, and heirs according 
to the promise." The promise to which he refers 
is : ^ ' I will be a God to you and to your seed 
after you." All that this promise involves, all 
that it means to those to whom it has been made, 
cannot be told. And this, not because such bene- 
fits are doubtful, but for the reason that we ^^ know 
but in part. ' ' No one can tell all the forces that 
have entered into his life, or their influence in 
making him what he is. We are, without doubt, 
the creatures of environment, but the factors of 
this environment that count the most are spiritual, 
and hence unrecognized. 

If we could critically watch the growth of our 
souls, as we can the shaping of a statue, if it were 
possible to know all the providences that have 
made up the warp and woof of our lives, we would 
be able to give definite answer to our question. 
But no one knows what has contributed most to 
the shaping of his spiritual life, and no one is 
possessed of anything like accurate knowledge of 
the providences that have most determined his 
history. To the tree in Eastern lands it means 
much to be ^ ' planted by the rivers of water. ' ' 
It is here that it best flourishes. Back on the dry, 



THE BENEFITS OF INFANT BAPTISM. 109 

arid plain, deprived of the needed moisture, its 
growth is retarded, and its life even endangered. 
But here beside the river, into the very bed of 
which its roots may penetrate, it flourishes and 
brings forth fruit in its season. To the tree it 
means much to be beside the stream, or, in other 
words, along the channel through which what is 
so vital to its life flows. It is worth much to the 
flower to be planted in the unobstructed sunhght. 
In the spring it needs the warmth of the sun to 
arouse it from its winter sleep, and when, later 
on, its petals open, it again needs the light to tint 
them with delicate beauty. Back under the shadow 
of the cliff, in the cold soil, and shut out from the 
warmth and light, the flower cannot attain either 
its beauty or perfection. 

In a word, every living thing is dependent on 
its environment, and requires that it be brought 
into those relations upon which its life is depen- 
dent. It is so with the spiritual life of man. All 
conditions are not alike favorable to its growth, 
and those that are essential we may be sure are 
furnished to all who through baptism are made 
heirs of the promise, ' ' I will be to him a God. ' ' 
Nor is this all. To be a parent is, in the nature 



110 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

of the case, to desire the best for the child. 
Uppermost in the hearts of the father and mother, 
and for a purpose, God has placed a holy concern 
for their children. By the constraint of love they 
own themselves compelled to the doing all that 
can be done for the welfare of their offspring. 
But such endeavors, earnest as they may be, are 
not wisely put forth if the spiritual of the child 
is neglected. Health of body is to be sought 
after. Yet health is but a thing of years. Intel- 
lectual attainments, the rounding out of the mental 
powers, is to be sought. But intellectual attain- 
ments endure but for a time. The soul lives on, 
and the bent that shapes its destiny is received 
here. For these reasons too great concern cannot 
be had for the spiritual welfare of our children. 
It is imperative that these little ones be placed in 
those relations most conducive to their spiritual 
lives, and into these we may bring them by 
baptism. 

It is impossible, within the limits of the present 
chapter, to trace the argument showing the identity 
of baptism with circumcision. Confessedly they 
recognize and confirm the same relation to God 
and possess the same symbolic meaning. They 



THE BENEFITS OF INFANT BAPTISM. Ill 

both signify the inward and spiritual grace of re- 
generation of which each was appointed as the 
seal. All that circumcision then did for the child 
baptism now does for it. But one of the blessings 
that circumcision wrought for the child of the old 
dispensation was that it identified it with the 
people of God, and made it an heir to the promise. 
And it meant much to be an heir of that promise, 
for to no human being can there come a blessing 
at all comparable to that of having God his God. 

But what circumcision meant to the child then, 
baptism means now. It makes the one thus given 
to God an heir of the promise that God will be to 
him a God. And God is not the same to all men. 
To some He is a daily presence, a confidential 
friend. To some He is a shield and a sun; a sun 
giving light and life, a shield affording protection 
and safety. To some He is a shepherd, feeding 
and protecting from danger. Beneath some are 
the everlasting arms, and to some, as not to others, 
is the ' ^ Eternal God a refuge. ' ' And this heri- 
tage, a heritage the value of which cannot be 
estimated, is the portion of those who are brought 
into covenant relation with God. And into this 
covenant relation we place our little ones by bap- 



112 THESE LITTLE OKES WHICH BELIEVE. 

tism. By this act we possess them of God as 
their God. 

And thus, out on the unknown pathway of life, 
into the temptations and dangers that are sure to 
come, we may send them, certain that they will 
not be without the presence and help of the Al- 
mighty Friend, certain also that we have placed 
them in the environment most favorable to their 
spiritual growth. 

Nor is that all. Having thus brought the child 
within the range of the covenant, having sealed it 
as a member of Christ's flock, there is given to 
the parent a power in the religious shaping of its 
life that otherwise could not be had. ''It will 
therefore be your duty as his parents to teach him 
early this blessed truth, to watch over his educa- 
tion in all things that he be not led astray by 
false doctrines, to direct his youthful mind to the 
Holy Scriptures and his feet to the sanctuary, ' ' is 
the solemn responsibility to which the attention of 
the parent is called in the formula for the baptism 
of children. But what greater help in the per- 
formance of these duties than that which is afforded 
in the right to teach the child that the mark of the 
Lord Jesus is upon it, and that, as a result of its 



THE BENEFITS OF INFANT BAPTISM. 113 

baptism, it is already a member of Christ's fold ; 
that it is already bound by all the obligations of 
religion, and entitled to all its privileges ? In the 
words of another, ' ' We endow our lips with an 
argument of divine persuasiveness when, at the 
earhest dawn of intelUgence, mingled with the 
sweet story of old, we whisper into the souls of 
our children the assurance that they are the lambs 
of Christ's flock and bear His mark." We be- 
lieve that no Christian parent whose example and 
teaching were consistent ever made such an appeal 
to the tender soul of the child without evoking a 
quick and abiding response. And then, too, what 
so mighty in its restraint, or so helpful in its con- 
straint, as the covenant bonds under which, as 
parents, we put ourselves by the holy pledges of 
baptism ? It is no easy thing to lay down pre- 
cepts which are absolutely safe to follow. It is no 
easy thing to daily live a Ufe such as may aflford 
an example worthy of being followed. Yet both 
are necessary on the part of the parent. Indeed, 
the condition upon which God pledges His bless- 
ing upon our children is the performance of the 
holy vows taken at the moment of their conse- 
cration. And these vows, in their power to restrain 



114 THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE. 

from the doing of wrong, and in their constraint 
to the doing of right, are of the greatest help. 

But among the benefits of the baptism of infants 
must also be included the joyful sense of com- 
panionship in the bearing of the heavy responsi- 
bilities of parentage. To no one does God open 
a wider sphere of usefulness, and upon no one 
does He lay a heavier responsibility, than that of 
parentage. It descends with all its weight in the 
moment that we stand beside the cradle of our 
first-born, and lifts not until all life's burdens are 
laid down. 

We desire that our little ones may go right, and 
that they may be kept from the hurtful influences 
that so thickly beset life. In a word, we want 
that they may be saved. While they are by our 
side we feel a sense of security. But they cannot 
always be near us. Sooner or later they will find 
their own companions, go out from the shelter of 
the home, and be exposed to the attack of the 
wild beasts that lurk amid life's mountains. And 
what will come to them then ? Who will counsel 
them, guide and help in the time when, so far as 
our presence is concerned, they will be alone? 
What parent has not asked himself these ques- 



THE BENEFITS OF INFANT BAPTISM. 115 

tions and wished that it were possible to put the 
ones he loves so dearly under safe convoy ? Well, 
precisely that is possible. It is possible to have 
another share with us the responsibility of their 
safe-keeping, and this one is God. We have 
already spoken of baptism as a seal. Upon every 
child given to Him in its holy covenant God places 
the seal of ownership. From the moment that we 
so give our httle ones to Him they are not ours 
alone, but His also. And being His, He also 
assumes with us the responsibility of their safe- 
keeping. Watched over, kept by the Great Shep- 
herd, we may be sure our little ones will be safely 
kept, for the promise is, ' ' Behold, he that 
keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." 
And in this promise we may rest. 



OCT 11 1904 I 



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